


Play Back the Tape

by showmethebeefy



Category: Agents of Cracked
Genre: M/M, Short Fics, Unrelated Collection of Stories, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 02:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3919780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/showmethebeefy/pseuds/showmethebeefy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You only get one chance in life to do things the right way. Dan had a history of bad choices. </p>
<p>A collection of short stories and writing exercises about Agents of Cracked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Right Partner

**Author's Note:**

> I'm tired of putting my fics into very short documents of chapters and such, so the rest of them are all going to be collected here. I cannot guarantee the quality of these stories. I can guarantee that they will all be about AoC. Maybe a couple After Hours fics late at night.
> 
> I wrote this one at 3 in the morning.

You only get one chance in life to do things the right way. You have to make the right moves, step the right steps, lock eyes across the room with the right dance partner.

Michael was definitely the wrong dance partner. Dan had a history of bad choices, including, but not limited to, sex with an empty pig costume, taking that job offer, getting attached to the most insufferable human being (?) on the planet, and then having a threesome with said being.

The word itself rolled off his lips in the wrong right way. Dan sometimes muttered the word under his breath when something went wrong, because that was the way the world worked now. The name spat so wonderfully from the tip of Dan’s tongue, and so it always hovered there, trembling, waiting to spill out in the wake of misfortune.

Michael filled all the spaces Dan could not. Michael could sleep with the whole bar, but Dan had to pay to have a conversation with the cute bartender. Michael could have sex with Mandy on a whim, but Dan repulsed Mandy despite his best efforts. Michael could convince Kelly Wheeler, _the_ Kelly Wheeler, to have a threesome, but Dan… Dan fucked an empty pig costume and thought that was what sex felt like. Most of all, though, Michael could worm his way into Dan’s heart and mind, bit by slimy bit, kiss him to bloody bits in a hot air balloon, and follow him home to the East Coast like a lost puppy. And Dan… Dan could let him. Would let him. Did let him.

Michael was definitely the wrong dance partner for anyone and everyone in the great big ugly universe. He talked too much, swore too loudly, and stepped on everyone’s feet. Maliciously, and with intent. Yet, Dan felt right in his arms. Even if being in his arms meant having to deal with someone infinitely better and infinitely stranger of the rest of his long days.


	2. Horses!?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan has a secret admirer, and he can't help but be creeped out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of a few prompts I got on Tumblr.

It started one morning with a plastic horse left on Dan’s windowsill. It wasn’t that it was there that disturbed him. It was that it wasn’t a horse that belonged to him, and that it was left on the inside of the window. Someone had been inside his house, and the only thing that was different was that horse, and one missing bag of Marshmallow Mateys.

Dan brought the horse with him to work, put it with the rest of the horses, and named it Michael, because it had come into his life with no particular reason, and had caused him to lose things that were precious to him.

Dan didn’t sleep right for a week after the incident, listening carefully, jumping at every sound, fearful that the intruder might be back with another horse, or maybe something more murderous. Every dead bird that turned up on his doorstep, seemingly brought there by some cat, every little knick knack out of place, set him on edge. What was he to do? It took a while, but he calmed down, began to sleep easier, and that’s when the second gift came.

This one came in the form of a box, big and light and inside his front door, with a note scribbled on the top in childish handwriting: “For Dan. Enjoy while you can. Love Secret Man.” Dan, puzzled over the ominous note, opened the box to find, packed in tightly, were hundreds of fresh-plucked red rose petals. Intermingled among them were several severed plastic horse heads. Dan taped the box shut, put it the back of his closet, and attempted to forget about it.

Now, Dan had two tormentors to haunt his brain. Michael, whose cheshire grin haunted his dreams now, and this secret admirer, whose gifts were bizarre and seemed to involve horses. What the hell was he to do with this?

He waited a week, and this time, he only pretended to sleep on the anniversary of the previous two gifts. He heard his bedroom window sliding open slowly, squeaks ear-piercing. It took all of Dan’s self control not to snap out of bed right away and confront the intruder. Instead he lay still, and watched through the cracks of his eyes as a figure, tall and ungainly, tumbled through his window. The figure seemed oddly familiar, and as it stood to its full height, moving back towards the opening, perhaps to pull something through, Dan realized.

“Michael?” he said, moving to sit up. The figure, which Dan was now sure was Michael, said nothing, only moving away from the window and toward Dan’s bed. Michael crawled onto the small bed on the space beside Dan and curled up slightly next to him. Dan could feel his breath on the back of his neck, and he made the quick decision to turn around.

“Michael, what are you doing here?” he demanded in the darkness.

“Surprise?” Michael said, teeth shining in the darkness in a sheepish grin. “I just wanted to do something nice for you, Dan.”

“Oh.” Dan thought for a minute. “Wait, why?”

“Your birthday, Dan, it’s today!” Michael seemed genuinely excited. “I wanted to do something really special, so I–”

“My birthday isn’t today,” Dan said, cutting him off. “It’s three months away.”

“Oh,” Michael said, sounding glum.

“It’s okay, Michael,” Dan replied, reaching out a hand to ruffle Michael’s hair in the darkness. “I appreciate the thought.”

They fell silent, and the night air rushing in through the window was pleasant. Dan couldn’t help but feel that perhaps this was what normal was, now. He could maybe get used to this. Michael seemed softer right now, in the dark of night, hot sticky body so close to his own. Perhaps, Dan thought, this is how it was supposed to be. He was thinking, he could get used to this, but Michael interrupted his train of thought with something that ruined it for him.

“So what should I do with the horse head outside your window, then?”


	3. Rising Black Smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are practically living in each other's back pockets now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second of several AoC prompts I got on Tumblr. This one was to write a fic based around "No Children" by the Mountain Goats, so of course I committed the cardinal sin of fic writing and framed the text in lyrics. I know, I know, fanfic.net levels of unprofessionalism. It just fit the atmosphere.

_I hope the fences we mended_

_Fall down beneath their own weight_

_And I hope we hang on past the last exit_

_I hope it’s already too late_

No one could love Michael. He was impossible. Dan figured that out day one. He was an asshole, he did everything wrong, and he constantly abused Dan, insulting him, calling him names, and following him around all the time. Dan couldn’t stand him.

No one could hate Michael. He was impossible. Dan didn’t know when he figured that one out, but somewhere along the way, Michael went from a nuisance, a pest in Dan’s side, to someone he valued and cared about, even if he still was an annoying asshole who just never stopped doing things.

Michael made Dan bleed in the best and worst kinds of ways. When they fought each other, when they fought for each other, when they kissed for that first time high in the sky. That was their relationship. Blood and tears and the headiness that thin air gives you. A delirium that couldn’t be stopped, dripping with blood and regret and piss.

One day Michael set fire to their new East Coast apartment, their only place to hide away, and wouldn’t stop laughing. Dan felt that laugh bite into his heart, knowing it had a hold on him but also knowing that without a home, they were royally fucked. Michael would be killed, and no matter how many times Dan had expressed urges to strangle the life out of Michael, he couldn’t let the Chiefs do that. Michael was all he had left, and if someone was going to kill him, it would be Dan. If someone was going to live with him through the mess, it would be Dan.

Dan’s car became their new living space. They practically lived in each other’s laps, in each other’s clothes, and sometimes, Dan wished Michael wasn’t there, but sometimes, he held Michael close to him and promised him he would keep him safe, even if it killed him. He thought about that a lot. The Chiefs coming for Michael and finding Dan first, ripping through his fragile human body before coming for Michael, who probably would go to them in confusion, looking for love where he would find only death. Maybe their corpses would be happy, fallen together, holding hands in the ruins of whatever home they had.

They were all they had, and so they held each other close in the wake of their old lives, the darkness closing in, the bottles and the drugs cluttering their tiny home. If Dan’s old friends from before saw him now, they would ask him why he stayed with Michael, and he wouldn’t be able to give them any good reason, other than, “because he’s Michael, and he’s the only person who took me for me, empty pig costume fucking and all, even if he doesn’t know who I am all the time.” They wouldn’t understand. Dan doesn’t even understand himself half the time. Michael is Michael, and that’s enough for Dan to want to protect him and love him till the end of days, even if he hates him sometimes.

_I am drowning_

_There is no sign of land_

_You are coming down with me_

_Hand in unlovable hand_


	4. Good Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I just really need to have you here right now." 
> 
> Dan and Michael sit in the hot air balloon, going East.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third of several prompts. This one is shorter, I hope y'all don't mind.

Dan held tight to Michael’s fingers, perhaps in fear that he might leave him now, somehow, some way.

“What are you doing, Dan?” he asked, though he curled his own fingers around Dan’s a little bit. The sensation was nice. Dan huffed through his bloody mouth, knowing he was leaving the ground and his old life far behind.

“I just really need to…have you here right now.” Dan looked down and away after saying that, unable to look at Michael’s soft, open face, with his blood staining his lips. Some of that blood was Michael’s blood, but some of it was Dan’s, and he couldn’t tell which was which and it just _bothered_ him.

“I’m not going anywhere, silly guy,” Michael replied. “We’re too far off the ground for me to make any sort of grand escape.”

“That would be such vintage you, though,” Dan replied, smiling.

“It would,” Michael replied, laughing a little bit. “Maybe I should do it.”

“You’re Michael Swaim,” Dan replied. “You don’t do things by maybes. You either fly free in the air for a moment and then splat on that ground or you stay here in the hot air balloon with me and fly for a long time. It’s your choice.”

Michael contemplated for a minute. He could see it, shining before his eyes, brilliant and beautiful, his arc of flight through the air before a glorious, messy collision with the ground. It was so tempting, and he even tensed himself to rise for a moment, but Dan’s fingers impulsively tensed around his own, and he turned to look at Dan, at the wreckage he had caused and the weird human feelings he had just confirmed, and he settled back down.

“Nah. I’m good for now,” he said. “Besides, I can jump out of a hot air balloon any day. This is special.” He settled back against the grain of the basket and let the wind take them east. As he relaxed for the flight, he felt Dan hesitantly lean his head on Michael’s shoulder, and knew he had made the right decision.


	5. Slip of the Tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan and Michael relax on a couch, and Dan says something he doesn't mean to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take it back. This is the cutest of all the prompts I filled so far. Still got some more to go, so expect more writings soonish??

Dan’s favorite thing on the East Coast was definitely the cool afternoons, where he could just sit and relax on the ratty couch in his and Michael’s apartment. On this particular cool afternoon, however, his usual reverie was quickly interrupted by Michael, attempting to backflip over the couch. He landed kind of funny, on his shoulders and neck, and his body made a funny sound before he moved again. Dan thought, no other man could do that and survive besides Michael. Just one of the many weird miracles that made Dan’s…whatever this was…a little bit easier. He couldn’t really call this a job, not after everything that had happened. But… it wasn’t really a relationship, either. This thought plagued Dan’s mind every day.

Michael sat up marginally and then flopped his head down on Dan’s lap. Dan jolted in surprise. Michael was always a touchy-feely kind of person, but seeing Michael’s face staring up at him made Dan’s heart beat so much faster. His face heated up. He knew that Michael wasn’t really the sort to fall in love. But Dan… Dan had fallen hard and fast for the baby-faced man staring up at him.

“God, I love you so much,” he said, perhaps a bit louder than he meant to. Michael sat up suddenly, a confused expression on his face.

“What?”

“Nothing..” Dan tried to hide his embarrassment. How could he have done this to himself?

“You…love me?” Michael’s eyes pierced Dan’s heated skin, making him shudder at the word.

“Can we pretend I didn’t just say that?” he asked timidly. Michael’s stare hardened, and then suddenly lightened.

“I think that’s great!”

“What?”

Dan’s confusion was interrupted by Michael leaning forward to plant a kiss on his lips. Dan froze for a second, confusion mounting, before realizing what was going on, and softening his mouth to the kiss. Just when he became receptive, however, Michael pulled away with a loud smack of his lips.

“This is great!” he exclaimed. “I was wondering when you would say it!” Dan’s mouth gaped, kind of like a fish’s when caught out of water.

“O-oh. For how long?”

“I dunno, forever? Since I met you?” Michael laughed, loud and clear and full. “Everyone always falls in love with me eventually.”

“Oh.” Maybe Dan wasn’t so unique after all. Maybe he was dumb for thinking so.

“The only difference is,” Michael went on, “this time I found out what it meant really, and I definitely love you, T-Bone.”

Michael leaned forward to kiss Dan, who didn’t bother to correct him. He was too happy to bother.


End file.
